Religion and Modernity in India

Description

Modernity, which emphasizes the relegation of religion firmly to an individual’s private life, is a challenging idea for any culture. In India it faces a particularly unusual problem: the persistence of numerous traditional and religious practices means that religion and modernity co-habit here in a complex, plural, transient, and historically evolving relationship.
Religion and Modernity in India explores this complex relationship through a series of case studies on the quotidian experiences of people practising a variety of religions. It presents the dynamically interacting textures of society engaging with modernity in divergent ways, both historically and in contemporary times.
The essays in this collection consciously bring in the idea of inclusivity by factoring in the small and local contexts. They raise important questions about marginality and sexuality, and discuss the oral and cultural traditions of both mainstream and marginal communities such as tribal communities and women. In doing so, they put forward the perspectives of groups that represent difference but at the same time are linked to a larger whole.

About the Editors

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay is Professor of Asian History and Director, New Zealand India Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Aloka Parasher Sen is Professor of History and Director, International Affairs, University of Hyderabad, Telangana, India.

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Table of contents

Introduction
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Aloka Parasher Sen

Part I Modernity, Religion, and Secularism
Chapter One: Society, Religion, and Modernity in Postcolonial India
T.K. Oommen
Chapter Two: Possession, Alterity, Modernity
Aditya Malik

Part II Modernity, Religion, and the Communities
Chapter Three: The Dravidian Idea in Missionary Accounts of South Indian Religion
Will Sweetman
Chapter Four: Locating the Self, Community, and the Nation: Writing the History of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas of South India
Ranjeeta Dutta
Chapter Five: Sedentarization and the Changing Contours of Religious Identities: The Case of the Pastoral Van Gujjars of the Himalayas
Alok Kumar Pandey and R. Siva Prasad
Chapter Six: Religion, Erotic Sensibilities, and Marginality
Pushpesh Kumar

Part III Secularism, Religion, and Politics
Chapter Seven: Rethinking the ‘Religious–Secular’ Binary in Global Politics: M.A. Jinnah and Muslim Nationalism in South Asia
Aparna Devare
Chapter Eight: Modernity, Citizenship, and Hindu Nationalism: Hindu Mahasabha and Its ‘Reorientation’ Debate, 1947–52
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay
Chapter Nine: Bipolar Coalition System in Kerala: Carriers and Gatekeepers of Communal Forces in Politics
B.L. Biju
Chapter Ten: The Ritual of Power and Power of the Ritual: An Interface between Religion and Politics
N. Sudhakar Rao and M. Ravikumar

Part IV Religious Practices of the Diaspora
Chapter Eleven: Cultural Reproduction and the Reconstruction of Identities in the Indian Diaspora
Aparna Rayaprol
Chapter Twelve: Durability and Change: Anglo-Indian Religious Practice in India and the Diaspora
Brent Howitt Otto and Robin Andrews

Notes on Editors and Contributors
Index